Pages

Saturday, March 17, 2012

App Review: Any.Do

Any.Do is one of the top task management apps available on Android. If you haven't followed the new app buzz over the past 6 or so months, you might have missed Any.Do. It's relatively new to the scene, and if you've been using an older task app, this review is for you.

Grade: A

Quick Pitch: Any.Do does just what you'd expect any task management app to do - it allows you to enter tasks and reminders, then check them off when you've completed them. It's the way Any.Do does it that makes it one of the best apps for the job. It runs on a simplistic, clean UI that is so eye-appealing you'll spend time on the app just to look at it. It comes complete with 4 different widgets so you can keep you to-do list in front of you with ease. And it syncs with your Google Tasks so that you can manage and view your tasks online. When it comes to sharing and organization Any.Do makes collaborating on tasks easy. Whether a contact uses Any.Do or not, you can share any task with them directly from the app. Perhaps the best part of this app is the task entry. When typing a task into the app it predicts common tasks with the accuracy of the best text-prediction keyboards - "Pick up..." becomes a list of Pick up drycleaning - prescription - milk - check - etc. If you are entering contact information such as "call Mark" the app automatically queues up a list of Marks from your address book, lets you pick one, and places a phone shortcut in the task so you can simply call from the app when you're ready to complete that task. Finally, one of the newest features to this app launches a pop-up box after each missed call and allows you to add that call to your tasks for later.

Full Story: If you've read my previous reviews, you can probably tell I'm smitten with this app - I use probably 95% of its capabilities on a regular basis. I feel that using a task management app like this is a great compliment to using one of the great note-taking apps I previously reviewed because it keeps your tasks closer to your fingertips. Any.Do is still a relatively new app, it's not without its bugs, but the team behind the app is great with updates and more functionality is always coming. Before using Any.Do, I wasn't a regular user of any task management app, but tested out such apps as Taskos and Astrid before deciding that Any.Do was the one to go with. For me, it was about the simple UI.

Pros:

Simple UI, easy to use - I'll admit it, I'm a guy, I don't like needing a task list to remind me to do anything (as much as I need it). So being able to get in and out of the list in a hurry is essential.

Task Prediction - Any.Do can let you enter your tasks in half the time, simply because it knows all about common tasks.

Widgets - If you're as bad as I can be at keeping your list in front of you, a widget will take care of that.

Cons:

Syncing - While the app syncs with Google Tasks, I've had issues with that working from my tablet. The Any.Do team collected a bunch of feedback so I'm confident they'll find a fix, but in the meantime, my tablet only keeps tasks that I enter from my tablet.

Organization - It's getting better, but for the most part you enter a task, then go back and choose a priority (today, tomorrow, this week, or later), whether to put it into a folder (personal, work, etc), whom to share it with, when to remind you, etc. A recent app update allows you to jump directly to share or remind - which are by far the best two options - but I still wonder how it might look if you could fully customize your task before submitting it.

Overall, this is a fantastic app and worth your time to give it a try. You can download it from the market here.